Wednesday, 31 August 2011

Recently i have bought 4 camera's varying in price from car boot sales mostly and i thought i'd put some pictures up for people to look at if you want, so the first camera i bought was a Kodak brownie six-20 model d which when i bought it i found a used film inside so haven't decided whether to get it developed out of curiosity really. hard to get a film for it since they stopped making them 16 year's ago but can use 120 on a 620 spool. today i bought a Rank mamiya (4b) for £1.50 and this was the best camera and has cleaned up very well and is working very well, the second a Bencini koroll 24 for £5.50 and has came up well, and finally a kodak brownie cresta 3 for £2.50 which i'm happy with, and when i took these pictures on some i got bored and started messing about with a torch.

Thursday, 25 August 2011

Visited the farm again yesterday and stayed till today, i started by sitting on the top of the hill waiting to see if there was any buzzard's in the area and if any would take the bait. about an hour and a bit all i had seen was a few woodpigeons, a few crow's, swallow's and a few small birds which i could not make out what they were. I then got interrupted by the R.A.F. a distant rumble of a helicopter I expecting it to be seaking from boulmer, the noise persisted until there was a far louder rumbling coming from right ahead of me, it grew louder and louder until Eurofighter typhoon F1 flew very low straight above me and then circled me and then the farm house well behind. it circled about 3 times and then there was a very low puma helicopter flew past and it then flew off with it. no Buzzard's after 2 and abit hour's nothing so and then left. Nothing much after apart from a single kestrel, tried for the badger's that night but nothing not even a sighting but did hear 2-4 Tawny owls. Today I tried going after Partridge (grey or red-legged) and successfully got a red-leg at very close range, i then went after hare's and I know realise a loud quad bike isnt the way to go about this but still managed to get a picture. after that then had a hawk t1.a pass very low over me but then banked away, didn't manage to get it as i didn't hear it coming

Friday, 19 August 2011

Visited the two hides at big water's today. At the first hide there was little of interest, all that was present was about 5-10 Mallard's, 1 Cormorant and 1 Heron at the far side of the lake. so moved up to the next hide and had a look at the swamp, and immediately saw a hawker dragonfly not sure which as I did not manage to get a photo as it was gone before I got my camera out. Got to the next hide and had a look out and saw, 1 Heron, 1 Moorhen, 3-4 mallard's, 6 Tufted duck and 1 Great crested grebe and later saw another. I then moved to the feeding station and again not much of note, a few Coal tit's, a few Great tit's, and some blue tit's. there was also lots of chaffinch, 1 female siskin, 1 G spotted woodpecker and 1 robin. After this i went to the end of Newcastle airports runway and tried to get a wide-angled view of a aircraft landing and i quite like the result's to, there was also a Kestrel flying along the perimeter fence and kept stopping to hover above it's prey. will defiantly be going back to Big waters in the not to distant future.

Wednesday, 17 August 2011

Visited Gibside today and i have to say it is a very nice place. I took mainly landscapes today but the sky had very little detail, blue sky did appear every so often but on whole not very often. The wildlife hide was good but may be better during the winter when there are no leaves on the trees as today it was very dark, iso 800 at 1/50 second was still very dark, not helped by the shadow of the hide. at iso 3200 1/50 was to bright so slightly faster shutter speed was needed but was very grainy,(sorry about the technical stuff if your not into photography). At one of the ponds there was lots of Damseiflies and Hoverflies. on the way round we heard a bird of prey of some description and got a brief glimpse but im not sure what it was and i've found it quite hard to find a positive match to the call made. On the way out i saw a large bird flying over the carpark very low and realised it was a Red Kite and managed to get a photo. not the best but still a photo.